About the Lunar Society

There are moments in history when the rate of progress seems suddenly compressed — when centuries’ worth of change are measured in years.

Athens. Baghdad. Kaifeng. Florence. Industrial Britain.

It is our view that we are living in just such a moment now. The foundational discoveries of the last 80 years, embodied in the continuing progress of AI, have led us to the brink of a new golden age of discovery.

And in ages where progress happens on such scale, it is often in fundamentally unscalable places that we should look for its driving force. Small groups of builders, inventors, and tinkerers, convened over dinner, were the place where the ambitions and progresses of each age were dreamt up, discussed, and put into action.

We think this is missing today. To fix this, we are restarting the Lunar Society.

In the late 18th century, an extraordinary group met every full moon at a house in Birmingham. Many were in their twenties. Between them: the steam engine, the discovery of oxygen, the foundations of evolutionary theory, the invention of the consumer brand. They brought wild schemes and real problems and helped each other fix both. Towing icebergs to the equator, artificially seeding weather patterns, intercontinental balloon travel — these were the crazier projects. But for the ideas that worked, they changed the world: had Watt not met manufacturer Matthew Boulton at a Lunar dinner, his engine may never have spread to every factory in Britain and beyond. The butterfly effect, writ large.

What gave those evenings their strength was not genius alone. It was the informality, the inefficiency, and the focus on relationships over outcomes.

We’re recreating those conditions.

Lunar

We’re hosting a monthly gathering of builders and experimenters early in their journeys. Ten to fifteen people, highly curated, one remarkable guest. People around our table have been working on reversing brain ageing, building rocket ships, and discovering new materials with AI.

We think our age needs this. We’re ready to find the people who will define it.

If we haven’t already found you, you can find us: here